If you read our feature from a few days back, we speculated on the DC characters that Dwayne the Rock Johnson could take on. Guess what? We were wrong on all three counts! Don’t judge us yet, because the announced role is out of left-field. Here’s more on the character and our thoughts on this bit of news.

About Black Adam: He isn’t as popular as a host of other DC villains mainly because he is the arch-enemy of a hero that has become archaic over the last few decades: Shazam. This isn’t for the lack of comics featuring the two powerful entities, but because both rarely featured in any other media the way Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern and even Martian Manhunter (and their gallery of villains) did. So it isn’t surprising that most people outside comic book readers won’t recognize Shazam or Black Adam.

Much like the hero Shazam, the supervillain Black Adam was a normal man bestowed with the power of 6 ancient Egyptian Gods, giving him Stamina, Speed, Strength, Wisdom, Power (to fly) & Courage. Unlike Shazam though, Black Adam prefers to stay in his powered form rather than turn back into his alter-ego of a regular human. Within comic-lore, Black Adam was the wielder of these powers before his ambition and greed corrupted him. When Shazam was picked as his successor to carry out the good of the Gods, Black Adam took this as an insult and has since tried to bring down Shazam to prove his superiority.

This move by Warner Bros. to announce a Shazam movie by first announcing The Rock as the villain Black Adam instead of the hero’s casting is interesting & worth exploring. Since the DC Universe was rebooted in 2011, Black Adam has become more of an Anti-Hero with an exciting narrative that pitches him as a fallen hero. By placing the movie on The Rock’s shoulders, WB could be planning to place Black Adam as the bad guy that the audience roots for, similar to Loki in the Marvel movies.

Dwayne Johnson brings with him a *huge* screen presence and a persona that can overshadow most heroes. If he plays Black Adam as a haughty self-important being of power in front of Shazam but lonely and conflicted when alone, we have a potential winner!

The movie does not have a release date yet, but is speculated to be scheduled for summer of 2016 (a few months after Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice).

About Shariq Madani

Shariq is a social, talkative, fun-loving guy who enjoys books, food and a long drive. But his real joy is in the comfortable darkness of a cinema, watching a good movie, and later spending hours discussing it.

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